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DIY Custom Closet Makeover

When we first moved into our house, just over a year ago, we knew that all of the bedroom closets needed some work. Custom closet organizers are crazy expensive, so we also knew that it’d likely be something that we’d DIY when it came time. Well, it’s now officially way past time.

All three bedroom closets are in constant state of chaos and bursting at the seams. We’ve done our best to work with what the house came with by keeping things as organized as possible, and purging clothes that the girls have outgrown, but when it came down to it, the current closet systems just weren’t utilizing the space to their best ability. Specifically, Zoey’s closet.

Yikes.

Clothes are piling up, toys are piling up, random things that don’t below are piling up. But, the most obvious problem in Zoey’s closet is the dead space. Talk about a waste. And with Lizzy well on her way to the age at which the girls will begin sharing a room, we have no wasted space to spare.

Not only does this space serve as clothes storage, it also functions as toy storage. The girls will have some toy storage beneath their beds, but the room isn’t huge, so that’s about it. We knew we had to make this closet work hard.

I ran through a few of my favorite inspirational photos and landed on the idea of using the lower portion of the closet for toy bins and the upper sections for clothing. After pricing out a few options, we decided to buy most of the inner workings in-store and to spruce them up with a “custom built-in” feel by framing everything in. We picked up one of Closetmaid’s 9-cube organizers for the bottom half and Ricky worked his magic.

(just ignore the wire rack above it, we hadn’t taken it down yet)

Next up, clothes storage. I always find that a mix of open and closed storage in closets works best, so we opted to use a few sliding wire bins to serve as drawers, with a rod above for hanging shirts. Ikea’s Komplement wire baskets (in 39″x13″) came close enough to the closet size that we could easily build out the sides of the closet to accommodate the drawer slides. The bins are perfect for pants, shorts, pajamas, and the smaller undergarment pieces. One basket really would have been sufficient for Zoey, but we chose to do two so Lizzy would have room down the road.

We topped these pieces with a sheet of wood as well to create a space that would serve as a little tabletop, just beneath the hanging clothes area. A small white trim piece disguises the unfinished edges.

We filled all the nail holes with a little wood putty, gave everything a fresh coat of white paint, and added the hanging rod above, as well as an extra shelf at the very top.

Looking so much better right?

Just wait.

Boom. Color.

Be still my heart.

We tossed in a few of Closetmaid’s Fabric Drawers (Pink. Red. Yellow. Orange.) in the bottom cubicle for toys and lined the wire baskets above with the same Watercolor Meadow fabric used in other areas of the room. The “liners” are really more of just faux fronts. I used a few leftover cardboard pieces, cut them to size, and wrapped them with spray adhesive and fabric. Voala.

I used the same technique on the bottom of the drawers too, just to give clothes a nice landing spot. Nothing super pretty, but it works, and it’s hidden beneath the clothes anyway

And moving up, we’re still playing around with styling, this isn’t going to cut it, but it’s a cute place for Zoey to display a few of things of her own. A little dish picked up at Target on clearance last year for jewelry (she has her ears pierced and is wildly obsessed with bracelets), a small flower vase that has yet to be filled, a few sentimental snow globes, and some other decorative accessories.

The wooden serving tray is corralling a few pairs of shoes (most live in the mudroom).

And as if this post isn’t long enough, let’s talk about the outside of the closet. I’d always envisioned a curtain to serve as the closet “door”, but the more we lived with the curtains in Lizzy’s nursery I realized how much I missed being able to actually close the doors. I loved the look of Ikea’s Hasvik high gloss white sliding doors, especially up against all the color going on inside.

This way, it can be a nice little surprise when we open the door, or easily hidden away if the color gets overwhelming. Win, win.

Ricky installed the track that came with the door directly to the wall, and it functions just like a barn door. Except, beautiful, beautiful high gloss white. Yum. The door has several safety locking features, so no worries about the door sliding off the rail, or even the kids pulling it off the wall from the bottom. This thing isn’t going anywhere. The door sits out just a tad from the wall, which works out perfectly with the adjacent wall art. The door just slides right over it.

A few other things to note:

– The door can only be purchased in a two pack, so we’re holding on to the other to use in Lizzy’s room some day, we’ll just need to get our hands on another track.

– And one small issue we ran into was the way the door hung. Since it’s meant to slide on a top and bottom rail, and we’re only using a top, the bottom tends to cling to the wall. We’ve since installed a pair of casters to the inside of the door, just at the bottom, that gently glide along the wall and keep the door standing perfectly vertical. I’ll catch you guys up on that as soon as I can photograph it to better explain.

Now, because you guys know I’m a sucker for a good before and after, let’s get these babies side-by-side

Oh yes. Yes, yes, YES.

Please tell me I’m not the only one that gets excited over a organized closet…

Okay… I have straight up fallen in love with this blog!! You guys are rockin’ this house! Can you guys just come over and do mine… you can blog about it! LOL! JK! Honestly, i love what you two are doing and I am inspired.

My dad is currently working on my 4 year old daughter’s room and she’s getting a custom made closet (thanks to carpenter grandpa). We designed it today and it’ll be started next week. I’m soooo looking forward to it because the ones in her current room are not making it! She will be blessed with 2 closets in her new room. The big one is for clothes and the small one will hold board games and all other large toys. I am super excited! You can see the progress here http://thebrickbungalow.blogspot.com/search/label/Lily%27s%20big%20girl%20room

Random question…if the girls have separate rooms now, why will they share one in the future?

Wow!! Love it so much – want come over and do my daughter’s, haha! It’s a disaster – clothes, toys, books and dress-ups all over the place. It’s driving me crazy, but now I’m super inspired to tackle that mess And that sliding door – love!

I love a good organization project! We don’t have kids yet but I’m thinking this would be great to do in our office closet. It needs a lot of help in the organizational department and one day it will end up being a nursery/kids room. Great job!

You two have done an awesome job once again. I am loving this closet redo. It looks so clean and super organized. Cute idea on the drawer fronts/bottoms. I would love to do my closet, it is a mess! It would definitely be an entire weekend project…maybe someday! Very inspiring!

I love the closet!! Just wondering – what happens to her clothes once she gets older? The one hanging rack looks kind of short. I tend to hang up my daughters dresses and they take up so much space because of the length. Would you in the future knock some of it down to accomodate longer shirts, dresses, etc? Love the pops of color such a fun closet!

You didn’t miss it! Just haven’t made an update We did end up attaching a few casters to the bottom portion of the door. They push it out, away from the wall to level the door out and roll perfectly alongside the wall. Hopefully that makes sense!

Hi, I know this is an older post but I’m hoping you can answer my question. I love what you did with this closet, and I’m thinking this could be a great solution for the closet in baby #2’s room that we’re starting to work on. I would love to use the Hasvik sliding door and would just need one as well. Could you share the width of your closet/the single Hasvik door? I couldn’t tell what the width for just one door was on Ikea’s website (ie do the two doors overlap some if used together?). Also, you mentioned that you plan to use the second door in your other daughter’s room. Will you be able to get another track on its own in order to install that one? I have a second closet that I’d potentially like to use this for as well. Thanks so much for your help!

Where did you end up getting the door & hardware from? I’m looking to do the same thing in our nursery. We have Twins on the way and with 2 cribs, etc. there isn’t enough room in there for a dresser or storage. Thanks in advance for the help.. your closet came out awesome!

ELSEWHERE

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